AboutUsLogo:Discussion/1
How we got here Phase III ... Discussion of the current design and the Consensus Poll
2007/07/19: I'm going to step away from the process here for a day or two to finish up some other pressing projects. When I return, I will devote more time to this poll to accomplish a few things: start a side discussion of the goals of AboutUs, investigate the pros and cons of this poll and suggest possible adjustments, and finally, finish up the poll and push through a logo for this organization--also a pressing issue.- Vinh Nguyen 
No matter how hard I try, I can't see the AboutWs. MarkDilley
- I agree Mark, I was/is not very apparent to me either. However, I do understand how one could see it and have made some adjustments to hopefully push this along. Aside from the two colors, the curves at the bottom of the text should hopefully undulate a little less now. - Vinh Nguyen
Tanwir Shah: The leaf, and the three abstract shapes creating it, aren't supposed to specifically convey a "global community collaborating in one collective aim." Instead the logo attempts to evoke ideas of collaboration, growth and emergent ideas/communities. In that sense I believe the proposed logo is on target. Also, the emergent leaf works on a worldly level in that we as animals are familiar with flora and nature as part of our lives; it's a bit more universal than, say, curved lines that resemble orbits circling something else feigning a globe. As for what we are all about, I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this topic. To me, AboutUs seems almost too rapidly developing to be able to nail down a specific mission.
As I mentioned above, this logo is flexible in uses and should be able to be used in various derivatives. But, more importantly, it also speaks to future projects, like TopSoil, that may very well be served by this identity. Hope you like! - Vinh Nguyen
Tak, the undetermined catchphrase really shouldn't be considered at this point in time. I apologize for causing any confusion by including that bit of text. All I was trying to do was illustrate a possible use of the logo and text--which, by the way, I initially tested with "Co-elaborating the web." - Vinh Nguyen
- Unless the catchphrase is going to be it's own Consensus Poll (and maybe it should be), I still can't switch to a "yes" until I know what it is. The point being that true, they are separate things, but both go to messaging and play so much off the other, I think they have to be considered together. In part, because of some of the (above) concerns about the leaf not saying "AboutUs", I believe that message then has to be conveyed in the text or the logo might not be appropriate. -- Tak
Vinh Nguyen: Hmm, yes, I see what you mean. I'm also not completely sure what we are about. The About Us identity is gradually emerging and is yet to form any kind of concrete shape. I must admit that after reading some of the comments on what others thought we were about, I felt a little depressed. some people feel that this is a directory of other websites. I'd like to think we are much more than that. We have the potential to be many things to many people and I felt these comments were pidgeonholing this site into a particular role. I came to work on Monday feeling that if we were only a directory then I was really wasting my time on TheStorytellersBazaar that I have been working on. A discussion at work put things right though.
I see your point about your logo design too. In fact this new design does give me a feeling of growth. I especially like the box around the leaves and how one of the leaves grows beyond the box's border. This last thing has won me over to this design as to me it suggests growth beyond the barriers that are imposed on us or we impose on ourselves. It feels very liberating. The only down side is that when the leaf in the logo emerges from this barrier it is already dying. The yellow colour (to me) suggests Autumn and the approach of death. i would like to see a vibrant bright green leaf emerging from the box. Having said that I do like the combination of colours you have used so the yellow does play an important role in the logo. Have you tried having one of the other leaves in yellow or does that mess things up? Tanwir Shah
Wally Wilson: Please forgive me while I think aloud about this design...it is the only way I know of to convey some of the context surrounding my thoughts. I am not an artist (IANAA), but I am a keen observer of nature and an urban forester/ecologist. The design elements of the leaves are clean, simple, and (even) peaceful/elegant. The stem visually captures the apical dominance found in growing vines in nature. The container is beautiful, its curves aren't forced and it is well-anchored on the bottom, left-hand corner in a way that provides a dual starting point for my eyes (one for the logo, and the same for the "AboutUs"). In light of the accurate, elegant depiction of nature, the font, with its serifs, is visually distracting to me...before I ever get to actually read it, it tells me (for a lack of a better set of words) that it doesn't play well with the logo (nature). Aside from all of my silly waxing, I cannot shake the idea that brown and yellow leaves mean Autumn, and that blue leaves mean _____? This design could really work for me, but the font and the colors leave me with a big question-mark on my forehead.
- Wally, thanks for the lengthy stream-of-conscious breakdown of the mark. I do agree with you about the serifs on the type; initially I had only one small serif for balance, but added the U serif for other reasons. I think that pretty much broke the logotype for me. I have been playing with/viewing other text options, including Swiss 721, but at a struggle to find something both playful, yet strong enough to sit next to the mark. As for the colors, I was hoping to convey less ideas of nature than unnatural entities combining to form something natural. Does that make sense?' - Vinh Nguyen
- Vinh, this is in response to both of your messages to me. I climbed out of my ecologist box this afternoon when I visited your design portal page and noticed the color palette. Since I'm always just a little leaf of streaming consciousness, here goes my attempt to relate... Since I'm a plant pathologist type, yellow leaves almost invariably mean two things to me (in my ecologist box); sickness, or variegated (and I tend to loathe both). The addition of a site color palette, however, ties things together in ways that people most likely have not yet envisioned: The logo in its native environment (Ok, I'm not entirely out of my box). I can see that a proof of concept page (your design portal?) would go a long way in giving a better view of the bigger picture in this design process. At that point (to me), blue or yellow or brown leaves become meaningless because their environment is in harmony with them... I'm thinking it (my inability to see "About Us") is more a matter of visual context, where right now the logo is sitting up there completely out of context. Given all of that, if I haven't managed to lose you entirely, I can see the "Us" in it all. I think that creating an AboutUs page with the entire concept of colors _and_ logo united will help a lot of folks to see your current vision. I think I'm pretty much there, myself. As for my expectations for AboutUs? I don't have any -- it is a Wiki, so it is what it becomes and it is always becoming something else. Yepper, the logo works when I keep that color palette in mind. I apologize for the drift, but that's what it is to be me. :-) Fonts... I have been looking at Lucida Sans Unicode, but Bandy, or possibly Gill Sans MT Condensed might stir up some ideas. Certainly TrueType fonts aren't real fonts (kerning pairs? what's kerning?) and the kerning would have to be adjusted in an image editor, but I'm not at my type-setting app right now so I'm forgetting a couple of really cool _real_ fonts. Bestest regards, Wally Wilson
I think the logo is very nice-looking, but when I saw it I was immediately reminded of another similar logo. Also, has the leaf perhaps gone the way of the swoosh? --Datagrok 21:25, 8 June 2007 (PDT)
- Datagrok, I understand your concern about leaves being used often in design. Unfortunately, this is pretty much the case with a lot of motifs. Just this morning, on a short bus ride to work, I counted five uses of leaves in logos: for a wood salvaging store, a cafe, on a semi-truck, and two others I can't recall. I also noticed the similarities between the above mark and the 9Rules logo. However, I do think the two logos are relating different ideas, though they share stylistic similarities. I'll be honest though, I do think my initial concepts focused too heavily on leaf/tree motifs and that I might have used the human/nature relation as a bit of a crutch. However, in designing an identity for something as enigmatic as AboutUs, I felt it very necessary to rely on something very universal in understanding. - Vinh Nguyen
- Very good points, I agree your process was good, and the logo looks great. Well, that was my only nit to pick with it. :) I don't think misrepresentation is too much of a concern, as there are plenty of very well-recognizable logos for abstract ideas and vice-versa. It took me a while to sortof-get what AboutUs was about even by participating here a while, so I don't think it's really possible to convey it through a clever design. ;) — Miketalk 20:34, 12 June 2007 (PDT)
I read what people have to say about this. Concerns, aside from matter of 'all the leaves on the internet', raised about the design can quite possibly be raised about the 'beta' logo. I see the people who seem to do the most about/to this wiki like it, I really do think it's snazzy. Reworking the font is a tricky subject, in my opinion at least. It is really not like the leaves I see elsewhere on the internet anyway. Robert David Thompson
I like the leaf, it's simple and easy to recognize which is important but at this stage is it not important what people outside this community think the leaf represents when they first see it? In other words, will the little old lady in Dubuque get it or is she going to think it belongs to a seed company (if seen on Yahoo) or that it has something to do with a firm's attention to the environment (if placed on a company's website)? If click throughs are important would it make sense to run this logo with some completely different designs on another web site (without announcing it here) to see what kind of clicks you get? My suggestion for a catch phrase would be what I tell people: "If you're not here, you should be" Ross 09:01, 9 June 2007 (PDT)
I've seen a lot of ugly logos that conveyed exactly what the group behind the logo was all about. Perhaps somebody, who agrees with Sander Snel and others, might draw this dreamt of logo that conveys exactly what AboutUs.org is about but somehow isn't just ugly. Upload it somewhere and give us a squiz? Most eye catching, good looking logos mean nothing without a little 'caption' text. Most people don't get it from the caption, a lot of people click on things that are 'pretty'. The old lady, from where-ever, will more likely find out what AboutUs.org is all about if she likes the 'bait' to get her here! I would love to display a 32x32 version of it next to the AboutUs.org link, which will always be present on my site. robsoles is Robert David Thompson
Diana Demarest
I am responding to a message I received from Vinh Nguyen. Forgive the length but I am also thinking out loud here.
Examining logo design, in general, from 40,000 feet and from a marketing perspective, it is less about color, size and beauty as it is about branding. For example, when one sees the simplistic apple that Apple Computer uses for their logo and when one sees it, they know – oh that’s Apple Computer. The same can be said of Chevrolet’s logo, of Microsoft’s floating multicolor window. Ditto the golden arches “M”. We all know McDonald’s when we see it – three miles away, down the road. We can recognize these brands immediately.
- Diana, could you say more about this? The apple logo works because the name is apple and logo is an apple, yes? So even though it's a computer company and the logo says nothing about computers, it works because the name, yes? Chevrolet? Why does that one work? Microsoft's floating window. At least that one can be said to be about their product, windows. Is that it? The arches, what do they tell us about McDonalds? Again about the name (1st initial)? Say more please! :-) TedErnst
What is the About Us website/portal? For me, it is a community built by consensus, rather than one entity. It has legitimacy because with all of the billions of pages of noise contained in websites out on the Internet, the ones here are well scrutinized for legitimacy, are assisted by AU members and staff with critiques and ideas on how to makes one’s About Us page better, as well as helpfulness. Again, this comes back to the sense of community and togetherness. It is also information – like an information booth where you can find many sources for many different topics over a very wide spectrum and a diversity of people.
So what does the new logo convey in the About Us example before us? For me it says (and as others have pointed out here), growth (leaves extending out above the frame), organic (evolution characteristic of living organisms) and a living breathing thing.
What doesn't it say? For me, information portal, legitimate websites, caring, community, working together, look and investigate further.
What graphic icon elements could be used to convey some of these ideas? (These are off the top of my head – I am sure others could come up with more and something better)
- Look/investigate: A magnifying glass, binoculars, eyeglasses, microscope, mirror, eyes looking back at you.
- Community: insects on the leaves working together as a group? (a group of Lady bugs, ants, birds, grasshoppers, etc – maybe several of each to show diversity), puzzle pieces fitting together.
- Building or consensus: Shovels or tools, two entities helping one another carrying something, two entities shaking hands
- Information: an open book, a pointing street sign, the information icon that is a lower case “I” in a circle, a question mark.
I don’t mean to over complicate the logo. Being in the web design business I realize how hard it is to come up with a graphic representation which conveys an idea. This was an attempt to give some pictorial images of what we are about. I hope some or any of it helps. Again, apologies for the length but it seemed important.
The Earth Metaphor
I woke up early and found myself pondering the seemingly trite "growth" metaphor for AboutUs. On further reflection I realized came to favor "gardening" over "growth" and then gardening raised to stewardship of the Earth. Here are a few more words that try to explain this vision. -- Ward Cunningham
AboutUs.org hosts continuously changing information about the people of the world and particularly how they choose to organize and relate.
We uses an organic metaphor for this information. All information is our "Earth". When we refer to "the Earth" we are being both respectful and somewhat vague, like the farmer, as to which parts of the Earth we are stewards.
Our mission is to give life to our Earth. We've begun by elevating the "about us" pages of the internet into a collaboratively editable commons. It is from this act that we take our name.
We assume an activist perspective with respect to our Earth. We choose to "work" the information we find so as to make it produce value we can share. The "iron" from which we make our tools is the computer. Our stewardship depends on making better tools, learning to apply them to our earth effectively, and then engaging all people in this creative activity.
Our activism derives from deeply held values. We struggle to voice our values but recognize that our voice alone cannot capture their uniquely human character. Our collective voices serves only to remind us that we are free to act on our values and that our actions observed and sometimes copied serves as our only sure way to guide stewardship of our information Earth.
